Making Gun Trades Work?

[thebookdoc]

I have a gun I want to trade and found someone to trade with. The dilemma: he doesn't know me, and I don't know him. I can post a link to him for my 316 ebay seller ratings, my positive reviews here on GTA selling scopes, but even that might not convince him. I gave him all this info, but there is a little hesitation now on my side as I'm not getting the same kind of depth of confidence in return -- and it is true that not everyone has been dealing with exchanges on the internet as long as I have, so they don't all have trading credentials.

So I thought it might be good to send to a third party and have them complete the exchange. So I looked around for a commercial site that does this and can't find one. Then I thought I could get a local shipper to do it...Then I figured there must have been someone on GTA that has done this? So I am asking.

Anyone have experience with exchanges/trades on the internet between people wanting to swap guns??

THANKS

[daved]

I've bought, sold, and traded lots of guns over the last few years and never had a problem, Richard.  I believe most of those have been transactions with people I "knew" from the various forums.  Most of us seem to have membership in several forums, and I always check the Yellow Forum BOI first.  I recently had one deal that I backed out of because of bad feedback on the BOI, and even then I gave my trading partner the option of sending me his gun before I shipped mine.  He declined, with much bad mouthing of the BOI.  Next thing I know, he's all over the forums as a scammer.  That said, I've found the vast majority of air gunners are pretty honest, in literally dozens of transactions I've never been burned.  A certain amount of faith in our fellow man is a necessity in transactions like these :-).  However, if the deal doesn't feel right, go with your gut and call it off.  And by the way, if he isn't willing to accept Ebay and forum references, he needs to stick to face to face transactions.

Is your potential trading partner a forum member, either here or elsewhere?  If there's nothing like the BOI available, perhaps just asking on the forum  if anyone has had any dealings with that particular individual will get some info.  I've seen that done before, and it seems to work.  I've never heard of anyone doing a third party exchange, although I'm sure you could find someone to be the middle man.  But I suspect it will just about double shipping cost for both of you.  If it's a high end trade that may not matter so much, but if it's a $150 Gamo, that could hurt.  Sorry I couldn't help more, keep us posted on what you end up doing.  Later.

Dave

[ezman604]

Rich,

I've had over 1400 transactions on eBay and some on Gunbroker and GunsAmerica. With eBay you have some buyer/seller protection with PayPal. I've only been burnt a couple of times through all this. With this amount of trading, you develop a kind of instinct from looking at an individuals transaction history. If that history is not available for review or shows some bad trading habits, I won't deal with them. Although I've not done merchandise trade, the same principles should hold true. If you can't verify this person, haven't met this person or if they were not referred to you by someone you know and trust, I'd say don't take a chance. Just MHO.

Dave

:emoticon:

[thebookdoc]

Actually in all the transactions I've done on the internet, the only problem I've had I was able to return for a refund. I'm hardly one that has an issue making a transaction, and I've bought some pretty expensive items...but almost always through ebay. I'm not worried as I am pretty sure already that this is legit (the photos sent to me were taken after I sent an email requesting them and before they were emailed...I can even tell you the camera model and exposure settings and that the image was not modified...some of that you can fake, but you have to really know what you are doing!). So likely in this case we will worry about nothing and spend a little extra on a slightly more secure deal...But I've already had two deals for this rifle slip away -- and a third that I nixed. This deal is the rifle I want!